Kingborough’s departments have too often reversed the proper order of governance. Departments are designing policy and councillors are following it. That is not democracy. It is bureaucracy unchecked. Elected councillors are the representatives of the community. Staff are the servants of that community. The CEO and senior staff are employed to deliver the community’s wishes through due process, not to determine what those wishes should be.
As Mayor, I will work with councillors and the CEO to restore the correct relationship between elected representatives, staff, and the community.
- Partner with the CEO on a measurable cultural reform framework with community engagement milestones, fostering a genuine ‘can do’ culture across all departments
- Require all departments, particularly planning and engineering, to assist ratepayers through regulation, not obstruct them
- Require staff to proactively advise ratepayers and developers on the most efficient path to their goals
- Ensure councillors set direction and departments follow it, not the reverse
- Expert advice must account for the full range of community impacts and must not substitute for elected decision making
- Ensure consultant briefs require assessment of all relevant community impacts, not just environmental or technical metrics
The Schedule 1 test
Council must push back on reports, recommendations, or consultant advice that fail to address the Schedule 1 objectives of the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993, known as LUPAA.
What is Schedule 1 of LUPAA, and why does it matter?
Schedule 1 sets out the statutory objectives of the Tasmanian Resource Management and Planning System. These objectives are not optional. They are the legal foundation against which all planning decisions in this state must be measured. Schedule 1 requires planning decisions to promote the sustainable development of natural and physical resources, maintain ecological processes, encourage public involvement, and share responsibility for resource management between the various spheres of government, industry, and the community.
Critically, Schedule 1 also requires planning decisions to consider the social and economic wellbeing of the community, not just environmental protection. It explicitly obliges decision makers to balance environmental, social, and economic factors. It is not a tick box for one at the expense of the others.
The problem in Kingborough is that too many reports placed before council deal with only one or two of the Schedule 1 objectives, usually the environmental ones, while ignoring the economic and social wellbeing objectives entirely. That runs counter to the spirit of the Act. It produces lopsided decisions. And it has contributed directly to the planning failures this community has lived through.
Under my leadership, council will insist that every planning report addresses all of the Schedule 1 objectives, including real world impacts such as loss of finance access, unaffordable insurance, land devaluation, economic stagnation, and social harm.
Opposing federal overreach on biodiversity and private property rights
The federal Nature Repair Market, established under the Nature Repair Act 2023, creates a national biodiversity certification and trading framework. Recent amendments now allow biodiversity certificates to be used as environmental offsets under state and territory planning schemes. This has direct implications for Kingborough landowners. Landholders who participate can be required to commit to 50 to 100 year land management agreements, with significant ongoing costs and restrictions on land use, value, and financing. If this framework flows unchecked into Tasmania’s planning system, it will further erode private property rights in Kingborough. The same question arises closer to home: Part 5 agreements under the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993 are registered on title, bind successors in title, and can outlast the owner who signed them.
Council under my leadership will:
- Monitor and actively oppose any attempt to use federal biodiversity market mechanisms to impose additional offset obligations on Kingborough landowners
- Advocate through the Local Government Association of Tasmania for councils to have a formal voice in how federal and state biodiversity frameworks are applied locally
- Ensure Kingborough does not enforce gold plated federal obligations or adopt them beyond the minimum required by law
- Commission an assessment of how the Nature Repair Act and associated state frameworks could affect Kingborough landowners, and report findings publicly
- Review Part 5 agreements under the Land Use Planning and Approvals Act 1993 as an existing local instrument of the same kind as the federal Nature Repair Market, so landowners can see plainly what they are committing to and for how long
- Publish that assessment in full and in plain English, as already promised, rather than reporting it in summary
